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~~~~~IMPORTANT SANDYBRIDGE OC INFO: Voltages & OC Guide!!~~~~~

Max3 said:
woah doing 4.5ghz with auto settings pumped it up to 1.464 in windows :eek:
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I noticed similar in my case, these CPUs appear to have a wall where all of a sudden, the voltage required for stability ramps up considerably.

4.4Ghz is perfectly possible on my i5 2500k and ASRock Extreme4 at 1.295 Vcore in UEFI & LLC level 2 (Translates to 1.32v in Windows) yet 4.5Ghz and above require a heck of a lot more.

I am currently testing 4.7Ghz (4.6Ghz in Bios, 1.38v, LLC Level 2 with the ASRock Extreme Tuner setting the BCLK to 102.4 and a Vcore offset of -.020, making the Vcore in Windows 1.37v) and only clocking at 4.7Ghz when I need it. All other times I use the ASRock software to clock at 2.9Ghz, solving my idle crashing issues while keeping a safe Vcore for 4.7Ghz when I require the speed.

Still testing at the moment, but IBT passes with no issues, and so far, no crashes, but will continue to monitor the situation.
 
I think it is possible there are some chips which have a wall at 4.4ghz whereby going any higher needs a heck of a lot more voltage, thats why auto sets it so high.

With mine if I set 4ghz it auto volts to 1.240 if I set 4.3 it auto volts to 1.280v if I set 4.5 it auto volts to 1.3v and if I set 4.6 it auto volts to 1.35 if I set 4.8 it auto volts to 1.42.

Gibbo was saying that some of the chips were hitting a wall at 4.4ghz this may be the wall that you are running into... a voltage wall where 4.5 is unrealistic.

Just my 2 cents. 4.4 is perfectly good enough anyway.
 
I'm on 4.5ghz with 1.325 vcore now, so far it's passed 10/20 linx passes. Vcore seems to range from 1.352 and briefly hitting 1.36 at times. Temps are still good with a peak of 66c.

If this is stable I think I leave it at this since we still don't really know what the max safe vcore is yet.

damn linx passes take so long with 8gb ram.
 
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nlel1975 said:
I think it is possible there are some chips which have a wall at 4.4ghz whereby going any higher needs a heck of a lot more voltage, thats why auto sets it so high.

With mine if I set 4ghz it auto volts to 1.240 if I set 4.3 it auto volts to 1.280v if I set 4.5 it auto volts to 1.3v and if I set 4.6 it auto volts to 1.35 if I set 4.8 it auto volts to 1.42.

Gibbo was saying that some of the chips were hitting a wall at 4.4ghz this may be the wall that you are running into... a voltage wall where 4.5 is unrealistic.

Just my 2 cents. 4.4 is perfectly good enough anyway.
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You may well be right, however, as long as my overall voltage doesn't go above 1.37v and works at 4.7Ghz when I need it to, I will keep my current settings.

After all, the ASRock Extreme Tuner Utility, while basic, is rather good, and if some programs require only 4Ghz, and some benefit from the full beans at 4.7Ghz, the flexibility of being able to set the speed I require from Windows is a very good thing.

As I said, if this proves stable and I can keep temps down (IBT topping out at around 65c on the hottest core isn't terrible), I think I am onto a winner. After all, I'm not chucking 1.4v+ to get silly overclocks like I have seen on other sites. They are really playing with fire just to get some tasty SuperPi results etc.
 
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Well, F1 2010 put paid to my above post... Playing at 4.7Ghz and around 20 minutes in...bang, BSOD Uncorrectable Hardware Error. It's very correcable, either more Vcore or lower OC. Frankly, until I see reports that 1.4v is sustainable without damage, I'm not going anywhere near it.

Back to 4.4Ghz at 1.28Vcore. I wanted 4.3Ghz from this chip, I have got that with interest. Any higher is just (for the moment, until I see otherwise) very dangerous play indeed.
 
nlel1975 said:
I think it is possible there are some chips which have a wall at 4.4ghz whereby going any higher needs a heck of a lot more voltage
Click to expand...

I've found this with every chip i've used since my first C2D, only they, and the quads would just get a rounding error on prime95 rather than all out system crash.

4.6 at the moment is about my stable limit and thats peaking at 1.36/67c so im probably going to let that burn in or try scale back the vcore as much possible, pref 1.35v and no higher and leave that for 24/7 overclock.

I dont doubt, based on testing so far that 4.8 stable would be do able but as the bioses are improving by the day and claiming lower vcore for a given clock speed I'll prob just leave it as is for a good while. lets face it, these chips are astounding even at stock, and at these speeds/price just unbelievable. Shame I had so many issues with the Asus, took the shine of what is an amazing bit of kit.
 
I've one of those chips with a wall after 4.4GHz. 4.4GHz runs perfect at below 1.3v but even 1.360v wasn't stable at 4.5GHz. Also tried 4.6GHz at 1.380v but no chance. While IBT would run fine for some hours, I would get Uncorrectable Hardware Error sooner or later even while the CPU was idling.

Oh well, 4.4GHz will do just fine :) Easy to cool it too, can keep my setup pretty quiet.
 
Phinor said:
I've one of those chips with a wall after 4.4GHz. 4.4GHz runs perfect at below 1.3v but even 1.360v wasn't stable at 4.5GHz. Also tried 4.6GHz at 1.380v but no chance. While IBT would run fine for some hours, I would get Uncorrectable Hardware Error sooner or later even while the CPU was idling.

Oh well, 4.4GHz will do just fine :) Easy to cool it too, can keep my setup pretty quiet.
Click to expand...

I was happy when I reached a wall at 4.3, it turns out a BIOS update got me up to 4.6 but I wasn't suffering a voltage wall it was just that the shipping BIOS did not support an essential feature which was added in the latest BETA Bios.

Therefore if ALL chips reach at least 4.4 (excluding those which need a BIOS update) then that is pretty awesome... a minumum 1.1ghz overclock to be had by all.
 
Phinor said:
I've one of those chips with a wall after 4.4GHz. 4.4GHz runs perfect at below 1.3v but even 1.360v wasn't stable at 4.5GHz. Also tried 4.6GHz at 1.380v but no chance. While IBT would run fine for some hours, I would get Uncorrectable Hardware Error sooner or later even while the CPU was idling.

Oh well, 4.4GHz will do just fine :) Easy to cool it too, can keep my setup pretty quiet.
Click to expand...
So I'm not alone then. Once the CPU hit's that wall it really really does require some severe voltage to get it past that barrier. Frankly, the things are so fast already the only reason I would go higher is for benchmarking purposes.

Ah well, £180 gets me a chip that is faster, by a long way, than one (The i7 960, which generally is quite hard to get to 4.4Ghz too) that costed £420 not so long ago! I'm not unhappy at all, and as I said, if 1.4v proves to be safe long term, I'll just buy a Frio to replace my current Zalman cooler and go hell for leather.
 
Just starting to play around with this new setup now.
Flashed the board with a new 1.8b6 bios from the MSI forum today.
So far seems stable at 4.4GHz with 1.288v showing in CPU-Z. Temps are fine at 47C load but a 5-7 degree gap between the hottest and coldest cores. Probably cos i forgot to order any TIM and used some pretty old AS3 I found in a drawer - went on like putty!! I'll refit the block when I get time and some TIM and see if it evens the temps.
 
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Dunno to be honest. I only got the thing running last night and sat down this afternoon to look into the bios. I had read that I needed a newer bios than the 1.4 for the PLL overvoltage so I just flashed the newest one I could find. :-)
 
Since flashing I have gained the PLL overvolt but my vdroop options only have 'auto' and 'disable'. Is this the same on the 1.7 and 1.8b5?
 
Right, while i let this burn in at 4.6 I'll prep the 1.8b version, see what that brings tomorrow :)

You should get, at least on the 1.6+ bios auto, disable and enable, im currently set at enable. Auto gives varying results and only seems to do any good at lower oc with vcore on auto, just my experiance so far though, manual voltages appear to be far more stable
 
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How do

I've received my brand spanking new PC today (thanks to ocuk) But, now i'm frequently getting the dreaded BSOD . I just wanted to check that my bios settings are in order or is there any adjustments i can amend to make my system a bit more stable? At this stage i'm happy enough to give up the Mhz for more of a reliable system. I'm still trying to get my head around this new tech and would be grateful for any assistance.

securedownloadme.jpg

By mixmasteral21 at 2011-01-15

here is a break down of my spec:-

CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz Sandybridge overclocked to 4.60GHz
MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
RAM: Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Power Supply: Corsair TX 750W
Cooler: Corsair H70 CPU Cooler
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 Graphics Card

thanks
 
I just bsod-ed 2hrs 30mins into a prime blend for 4.5ghz at 1.325v. I'm just going to work on tweaking my 4.4ghz 1.31v setup instead as that's already passed about 8hour prime blend and 20 linx.
 
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